Everyone Responsible
by SufferingThePretences
Summary: He's finally had enough, and someone important will never forgive him. ZADF, ZAGaR One-shot; Complete


A/N: you know the drill.

Yeah, ANOTHER one-shot...

You'd think I'd have a decent chapter fic up by now, huh?

Well, for those of you (jubilantly! [new word]) waiting for my Avatar fic...well...I guess I can upload a chapter today. It'll be multiple chappys, so good fer me! 83 But, I have a break from the usual ZADR here! 8D And I know I don't usually do these...so be happy! :3 I think this is the beginning of another collection fic. xD

*drum roll*

IT'S A ZIM/GAZ ONE! 8D YEAH, I KNOW!

It's rather angsty, seeing as I went and pulled a Romeo and Juliet on you guys at the end tharr. I was listening to a rather angsty song on 89x. (most awesome radio station EVER!) If you guys are wondering what I'm talking about...well... you'll see! D8

Not my fault...

Again, blame my English teacher for ending the year with R&J...and better yet, blame 89x and my noisy neighbors! o: Without whom, and their noisy bass player this may not have been possible! (had to turn on the radio to tune it all out, and I had to actually stop reading Harry Potter to write this. xD Inspiration took hold!)

Again, enjoy this one-sided Zim/Gaz fic. 83

Gonna slip in a thankies to JoeMerl(who has reviewed on almost all of my fics), little girl-GROWN UP(ditto), and anyone else reviewing for me! ;3 Thanks for your support! Hopefully someday I won't suck...

Dib's POV, btw. ;D I know some of you are like, 'WHAAAAAT?' well, just watch--read...er...you know what I mean. =3=

Also, I titled this 'MASS MURDER ON-CAMPUS!!' on Open Office. xD Just thought I'd share that with you guys...hrrm...oh, alright...

...I'll shut up now.

'Ere we go!

My eyes close almost involuntarily. I lean back on the hood of my car, trying to allow the cool breeze to calm me. The damn lizard. I open them. In turn, Gaz' and Zim's faces have been haunting me every time I let my eyes close ever since I got the damn letter. My right hand which is holding the gun twitches.

The letter I have clutched tightly in my left hand flutters slightly in the breezes. I hadn't realizes...at the time...it was just so...But of course she loved him. It was only completely obvious after I finally caught him.

_Is this really what you want?_

_How she'd tried time after time to convince me to stop fighting him. tried to make me see that he was harmless in his own stupidity. Asked me to just PLEASE let her talk to him alone for once._

_How could I, though?_

_How could I just let her go into enemy territory alone?_

_"What are you _doing_ here?!" _

_I couldn't. I followed her. I had followed her to his home, and saw that of course, he'd been surprised to see her. Surprised to see her alone....The glint in his eye was familiar, and one she wouldn't recognise. The one he gets just before a fight. The one I've grown to know like the back of my hand. I couldn't just sit back and watch the inevitable. He was sure to kill her...._

_"Dib?! What the HELL?!" Gaz, pissed again._

_It was as if he'd known I was watching all along. What happened next was merely routine. We fought. It was as if nothing else mattered. Not Gaz; not life. Only our fight mattered, only his mission mattered._

_"STOP!" _

My eyes clench tightly shut now, and I let out a shaky breath as the memories take hold.

_We didn't listen. Of course we didn't listen. Then she got involved. DAMNIT, she got involved!_

_"Zim! Dib!" She was between us , I was forced to jerk the gun away when I shot, too late for the bullet to be stopped, but it missed. _

_I was furious. For once, her dark aura didn't stop our fight. It didn't scare either of us, and Gaz turned into another obstacle. Just another thing that was in my way. my vision was going red as I stared at Zim._

_"Zi--? OW!"_

_Zim had been the one to know her out of the way, and he did it none too kindly. She cried out. It was her cry--her DAMN cry that snapped me out of whatever I'd fallen into. Her arm...her arm...._

_"I don't care...doesn't hurt that much--ahh...Looks worse than it is--oh stop blubbering! Hahaha...jeez, you always were--ungh--a whiner...." For I'd started crying. Gaz mattered. If I knew anything it was that Gaz mattered. What had I done? What had ZIM done? _

_I glared over at him, and he'd stopped fighting as well. More out of pride than anything else, I suspected. What good was winning if your opponent wasn't doing anything? He was looking on at the scene between us disgustedly. I turned away to try desperately to stop the bleeding. Her arm...was mutilated...I didn't know how, but there was a pipe..._through_her arm long-ways. It was sticking out in multiple areas, and covered in rust. A bone was sticking out as well. I shuddered, and I heard Zim snicker almost inaudibly. Probably at my shaudy attempts at medical aid._

_"SHUT UP, ZIM!" I cried in desperation. Zim merely stared, unimpressed._

_"Or what? Or your SISTER will do some--"_

_"Shut up, you two...I can still...kick yer asses--ugh!"_

_I called the ambulance on Gaz's cell phone. Good thing she always carried it around with her. It was my chance! My chance as the police came. My chance as the rushed her onto the ambulance._

_"Dib! don't you DARE!" as she was pushed in. But she saw me anyway._

_The medics and the police hadn't noticed Zim at first, as he had quickly thrown on his disguise. I hadn't listened._

Tears prickle at my eyes, and I punch the hood of my car. Why didn't I ever LISTEN to her?!

_They all saw Zim. They asked him if he was okay. Okay?! I ignored the cop who had come over to question me, and stormed over to Zim as he answered a police man's questions--_

_"Dib, DON'T!"_

_--and pulled his wig off._

_"HE'S AN ALIEN! LOOK! I'M NOT CRAZY--" here I took off a stunned Zim's contacts, "--HE'S AN ALIEN!"_

I swallow the lump in my throat. They had to amputate Gaz's arm...

_"I'll never forgive you..." from the hospital bed, a bloddy bandage on her left side. Her arm was taken clean off. If I hadn't exposed Zim, she'd have still had it...if everyone had just moved a little faster before the infection spread..._

_"I'm so sorry, Gaz..."_

_"...."_

_In the hospital was the last time she decided to speak to me for a long time. I watched her, and I knew she was visiting Zim regularly. A month later I tried to speak to her again. As she was leaving the hospital for a check-up, I was waiting on the steps._

_"Are you okay? The infection hasn't shown up again, has it?"_

_"...." she greeted me with silence, and stood where she was._

_"Please talk to me, Gaz, I'm sorry!" _

_"...." She wasn't even glaring at me. Her usual loathing glare was now a blank slate. I grew angry._

_"At least he's still alive!" I'd said rather loudly, and Gaz had merely stared for a moment._

_"That's not good enough."_

_The feeling was obviously not mutual between them. At least, to a second party like me it looked like that.. Of course, Zim had been transfixed with his mission. Emotions...things frivolous like love...he didn't have time for thse sorts of things, it seemed. As the days passed, it was more and more obvious that her visits annoyed him more than he enjoyed them. But she loved him..._

_"Zim...? Zim, are you okay here?" I'd heard her ask him once, nothing like her usual self. She never acted like herself around him. At least...the Gaz I knew._

_After a bit she'd gotten a nice, sleek robot arm to replace the one she lost. This was three months after the fight. She was watching Zim closely, as they put food in for him. The person assigned to him waited for a moment, then left. Gaz stopped him outside the door, asking about the food._

_"He doesn't eat," As if surprised by this, she let him go. She turned back to the impenitrable glass between them, and stared at him intently. He was glaring with dislike at his 'food.'_

_"Then neither will I..." I heard her mutter, and horror dawned on me._

_Weeks passed, and she slowly deteriorated with him. He didn't eat, so she wouldn't eat. She hardly slept anymore, claiming that he didn't need to when a worker asked her if she needed to go to bed._

_"Do you see Zim sleeping?" Incredulously._

_She didn't drink because he wouldn't--couldn't.... Didn't even _look_ at water._

_The day that marked the sixth month after the fight, and Gaz's accident, found me tailing her as always to Zim's cell. I'd watched with a prickling sensation like something was about to go wrong as she surveyed his many cuts and bruises along his otherwise smooth skin. She caught the worker again as he left Zim's cell. He'd left yet another bowl of 'food,' that would remain untouched, like the first one. She questioned him this time about the bruises and slice marks._

_"...Disection?" She'd asked in horror._

_"Don't worry, he heals quickly, Miss."_

_The next day...I'd walked into the kitchen after another sleepless night. I found her there, crumpled on the floor. A large knife in her limp hand. Blood was everywhere. I didn't even want to look at what I knew was her intestines on the floor. I almost threw up right there, but called 9-1-1 instead._

_"Gaz, what the HELL were you thinking?!" I'd shouted in outrage, our father absent. Perhaps he didn't even know yet._

_"...."_

_"Jesus, Gaz...just..." Maybe she knew I wouldn't let her die. I was always predictable like that._

_They just barely saved her that time. They had to replace much of her large intestine with a synthetic one. Her stomach needed to be patched as well. Every few days she had to come in for surgery until they found a material the stomach acid wouldn't slowly eat through. Every time she took it with a sickeningly pleased smile. Every time I felt just a bit sicker inside. Every time they stuck food and water into her system to keep her going._

_She would only speak to Zim after that. She practically lived outside his cell. They wouldn't let her in. Sometimes she got responses from him. But everytime they were short, or one-word answers to her questions. I watched her...I saw each fleeting flash of delight that skittered along her face... _

_It was a full eight months after her accident._

_"Are you feeling okay today, Zim?" No response, "They took me in for surgery again. I refused pain killers, or sedatives...hurt like a bitch, but I think I know some of the stuff you're going through..."_

_"Why are you doing this, Dib's sister?" I heard Zim's scratchy voice ask. It was hoarse with disuse._

_"Zim! ...It's Gaz...and...I'm doing this because I want to know what you're going through. I want to feel the pain they're putting you through. It's sick--what they're doing...I know they'd never do this to a human. Wel, hahaha, without the intention of helping the human," here she grinned, causing my stomach to flip uncomfortably, bile rising in my throat only to be forced back down, "but...mostly...I do it...because I love you, Zim...I love you..."_

_"...."_

_"...Zim?" the hope in her voice pierced me through._

_"Pathetic."_

_She didn't care though. She'd only wanted to hear her voice. I remember I spoke to him after she left. This particular visit pissed me off._

_"Bastard," I greeted him, stepping forward._

_"Long time, no see, Dib-filth," he'd sneered, his familiar smirk playing across his face. His bruised and cut up face. It was amazing...no, stupid, really, how he held on to life._

_"Don't smile, you ass. What's wrong with you?! Don't you even care that she's practically KILLING herself for you? LOOK AT HER!?"_

_"Humans are so weak," came his quiet response. For a moment I thought I heard him wrong. Surely he was in no position to--_

_"Just..." I felt my anger melting, sadness replacing it, "just eat, will you? She won't eat unless you do, and we can't keep forcing food into her system like this...she won't...she cut herself in so many places, there were g--" _

_"You think I care? I thought you were smarter than THAT. I am an Irken, and I am proud. As if I would give in to your puny requests. She is not of my race, and unimportant to my mission," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. I merely stared in anger, not quite able to speak yet._

_"If you can complete your mission _dead_, then she isn't," I hissed darkly, "Like you said...humans are weak. If she dies before you...I swear to GOD, Zim...if you let her kill herself for YOU...I can promise you that you won't live to finish your _mission_."_

_I was so mad. I was so mad at him. The hate I felt for him was burning in my gut, buzzing around like a swarm of bees. Burning like acid._

_"I think I'll go with you to see Zim," I announced the next day to Gaz when I woke up. I found her sitting in the kitchen. _

_"...." she responded as usual in silence._

_"Yeah...been a while," I said awkwardly. Both the visit and walk to the lab were no less awkward._

_I'd watched Zim when the man brought the food in. Warning him with my eyes. I stood behind Gaz, who was being quiet because I was there. She merely sat at the glass, staring in at Zim. Zim, however, was glaring at me. I glared right back, and, still seething at me, Zim picked up the spoon near his bowl of 'food.'_

_Gaz let out a muffled sound of excitement as he ate. His eyes were locked with mine the entire time as if to say, _'See? See what I'm doing here? I'm not doing it for you, or the GIRL...I'm doing it for my mission.' _Hate swirled between us, but Gaz was completely oblivious to that fact. She watched Zim eat, her own stomach letting out a growl/ _

_"He's eating..." she'd said in amazement, and the man came to gather the bowl, as if he'd been watching. _

_Gaz jumped up, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. I watched his eyes flicker to her, and their eyes locked for a moment. The man came back out._

_"Get me a bowl of that," she said forcefully as he closed the door behind him. He jumped, and glanced up, locking the door._

_"'Scuse me, mam?" he asked, as if he hoped that he heard her wrong._

_"I said GET. ME. A. BOWL. OF. THAT!" she shouted at him, causing everyone--including Zim--to jump. When she finished, she left, taking the empty bowl with her. I let the tears of relief fall from my eyes, dripping onto the floor. Zim's eyes locked with mine, and I saw the shock that was turning to disgust there. Whether it was meant for me, for Gaz, or for both of us, I didn't know._

_"Pathetic..." he'd muttered, narrowing his eyes._

_"Thank you," I'd murmured, unable to be angry._

_"Humans are so pathetic..."_

_She ate what he ate, and she ate it with him. I tried not to watch when I tailed her as she tried to eat it slowly. Zim was only fed once a day. It didn't matter though, she was starting to look better. Even after her surgeries, she was showing a bit more color in her pale face. She chatted more animatedly with him, and with regular meals--no matter how meager--were doing her good. She was still very unhealthy, though._

_I wasn't prepared when, a week after he'd finally started eating, Zim's vitals gave out, and he died. It hit me like a bulldozer. After I heard the dreadful man who was giving Zim his meals--his name turned out to be Earl--tell me the news, I found it hard to breath for a moment. As if the air was suddenly either very thin, or too thick to breath in correctly. Zim was gone. Zim was gone for good. Forever._

_"You...what?" I asked, unable to believe my ears as Earl went into detail._

_"It had gone on long enough, okay? He deserved every drop of the poison I gave him!" I slammed him against the wall to his shock. His eyes bulged so far it might have been comical under any other circumstances._

_"BASTARD!" _

_"Gaz was unhealth--" I punched him--cutting him off._

_"She's as good as DEAD now!" I roared, dropping him and rushing to find Gaz. I knew where she'd be, though. _

_I found her, crumpled and in tears on the floor outside of Zim's empty cell. Even though I tried not to look, I found myself gazing into it. The barren walls...the food substance that had been poisoned still slopped all over the floor. And even though I knew he was really gone, I still expected to see him._

_I still expected to see his cocky smirk, as he lept into view, having tricked us all. I expected to hear him gloating from somewhere, like he always did when he pulled one over on us. It couldn't have been true. Zim was always okay, he always managed to get out of any and every situation. _

_But I knew it was true. With a sinking sensation that was like a boulder in my stomach, I knew it was true. __I guess I never knew how much Zim affected me. We were friends...in some messed up way...in the end...._

_I'd helped Gaz up, keeping her from harming herself. She didn't want to go to the autopsy, and that was okay. I went though. And I saw his lifeless form on the table, his PAK off and being examined. GIR had long since been taken apart. It was sickening to watch. _

_When I got home, there were a few messages on the answering machine, but they were all for Membrane. I listened in a bored fashion to them, taking down numbers, and writing a few messages out. It was odd, like I was going through the motions. I crept into the kitchen to grab something to eat, and settled on some cold pizza I'd had from the night before. _

_It was quiet._

_"Gaz?" I called out from the bottom of the steps, expecting to at least hear her sobs. _

_Nothing._

_It was an eerie silence. It was quiet like a funeral, nothing but the sound of nothing. I was almost afraid to call out again, but I did. And I received no answer. My voice was still reverberating through the stony silence of the house as I crept up the stairs. I knocked loudly on Gaz's door, switching on the hall light._

_"Gaz, are you up?" The light made me a bit more confident, and I pushed open her door. The light shaft inside cast a scary look about her toys. I eyed them apprehensively before creeping into her room, "Gaz?" I nearly whispered, crouching down by her form. I heard a clack when I shifted her body, and looked down to see a bottle of pills rolling across the floor. I glanced up at an empty bottle of whiskey on her nightstand._

_Horror seeped through me, and I lifted the bottle, frantically unscrewing the lid to find it empty. Dropping it, I immediately called 9-1-1._

_She wasn't dead. Fortunately, they managed to get the whiskey out of her system. It was gross, she was coughing it up everywhere, and her voice was raspy and papery when she spoke. They rushed her to have her stomach pumped, and then to surgery, where her stomach patch and intestinal replacement were repaired...._

_"Gaz..." I tried speaking to her. My voice was soft, and I was nearly whispering._

_"...." she didn't respond, merely laying in the hospital bed. They had insisted that she stay for a few nights._

_"Gaz, I'm sorry about everything, okay? I'm sorry about exposing Zim last year, I'm sorry about your arm--about how everything turned out..." _

_"...." _

_"Gaz, please! Come ON! You were killing yourself for an _alien_! An alien that would have killed you in a _second_!" I found myself shouting._

_"...."_

_"Please...I couldn't let you die..." I said pathetically, my mood shifting dramatically as it had been tending to do._

_"You should have," was her simple and scratchy response._

_She'd given up. It was a simple as that. She'd just given up. Nothing made her smile anymore, and she hardly gave any attention to anyone who came by. Especially me. She didn't speak. She didn't eat. They asked me if I wanted to put her on an IV drip, but it seemed wrong, somehow...so I said no. I visited her every day. Earl came once, but after I beat the shit out of him and threatened his life, he didn't come again._

_It was life replaying what she went through when she stopped eating for Zim. She was slowly deteriorating again, and it was hard to watch her every day. Harder even when I knew it was all my fault in the first place. Finally, with my father's consent, they put her on a regulatory machine. It kept track of her vitals and kept them in good shape...but then I got the letter._

I let my eyes open again, tears fully streaming down my face.

_He'd unplugged her. That bastard had talked to Earl, and he'd unplugged her!_ _Oh, but he had the peice of mind to send me a damn LETTER! I'd been beyond furious. I'd been passed words._

_That had been the first time I shot anyone besides Zim with my gun. Earl died first. It was his fault Gaz was on life-support in the first place. At least, that's how I justified my killing him. I knew it was all my fault once again as I drove to find my father. He deserved to die. I found him at Membrane Labs inc., and I shot him there. Another one down. _

_Everyone responsible for Zim and Gaz's deaths were going down. I didn't even know I'd been doing it for Zim too until I shot the man running the tests. Nice man. I think his name was Jefferson...._

And here I sit, my gun in one hand, the now crumpled letter in my other hand. I throw the letter away, and slowly sit up. Everyone responsible for the death of Gaz...and for Zim's must die....

I put the gun barrell to my head, my hand surprisingly steady.

For both of them.

I pull the trigger.

Phew...whelp, looks like I won't have time for the first chapter of avatar after all. It took me three hours to refine this and then type it up here, so it's now 1:07 in the morning. o-o" Looks like I got carried away.

This is probably the longest one-shot I've ever done, and the longest one I will ever do.

Now that I think about it, it probably could have been longer, and multi-chaptered...ah well....

Review, okay? If I don't get any reviews on this one, you guys won't be seeing my Avatar fic for a looong time.

Until next time! SufferingThePretences - Signing Off!


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